It did smell, though not nearly as badly as the room with the rotten fur. Danielle followed Jordan in, and Akari and Gideon came behind her and closed the door. Part of the problem was a urine smell from the bathroom. Part of it was sweat, Danielle thought, which matched up with the idea that the bedclothes needed cleaning after being sick. Something did seem to be rotting on the countertop, but it was smaller and less virulent than the unprocessed fur had been.

  “What’s up, guys?” Jordan asked, striding into the bedroom area while Danielle searched the counter and found a mug with a couple moldy carrots in the bottom of it. She quietly took it to the bathroom and dumped it in the toilet, keeping her System-sharpened ears on the conversation in the main room. “I know you were feeling all gloomy and stuff last week, but we got a whole extra week’s worth of food, and you didn’t even have to take care of me while I was being extra sick. What’s all this ‘let us die’ stuff?

  “How are you so healthy and energetic if you were extra sick?” one of the boys asked him.

  “I got a head start, and my new hunting party has a Healer that was checking in on me,” Jordan said. “I’m not a hundred percent better, but I’m almost there. Like, I’m 90%, maybe. If you guys are with most of the camp, you’re probably about 75% done.”

  Danielle ran the water in the sink, but not too loudly, and added just a little soap to handle any oils, then swished the cup around to get out the last of the soup leftovers.

  “We’re 75% done for,” a different voice said; Danielle thought it was the one that had called Jordan ‘abandoner.’ “Including the soup, we got four weeks of food, and three weeks of it are gone. What good does it even do to get over the disease if we’re just going to starve?”

  “Guys, we talked about this. There’s food in the woods. It takes work to go out and get it, but it’s there for the taking if you do the work,” Jordan said. “You have to stop letting the Wolf Pack loonies get into your head – I almost died for real doing that, but now that I’ve got my head screwed back on straight, I’m doing fine.”

  “You and your fish,” the first voice moaned.

  “So, what, you’d rather die than eat fish?” Jordan asked. “Maybe you’re too good to drink water like our ancestors, now?”

  “Shut up! Since when do you suddenly care about the lives of our ancestors? You always said it was stupid!” the first voice accused.

  “I still think it was stupid the way the bloodline retention loonies did it, but now that I’m actually doing low-tech living, mostly, I might care a little more about how to do things without all the tech,” Jordan said. “Since when do you not care?”

  “This is not a savannah, and no herds of antelope are going to show up to be speared!” first voice complained.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Jordan said. “We’ll just have to learn a few things from a few other people’s ancestors, too. When’s the last time you had something to drink?”

  “I ‘unno, this morning,” the first voice said sullenly.

  Danielle Used Sterilize Object on the mug, and returned to the kitchen. She didn’t see a camp stove set up on the counters, or even any other used mugs.

  “Would you like me to refill canteens for everyone?” she asked.

  “Go away!” voice two said. Now that she was in the main room, Danielle could see that it was coming from the bed nearest the door, but the boy had his pillow over his head.

  “I will after everyone who wants it has hot food and clean water on hand,” Danielle said. “I can also use Local Antihistamine if you need some relief from the itching.”

  “You wanna use it on my dick?” asked the boy across from him.

  “Nope. The Ranger Healer on duty is a guy, though, I’ll call him for you if that’s actually what you need to sleep,” Danielle said.

  “Go jump in a hole,” the boy said.

  Danielle sighed. “It’s my night for people to be rude to me.” She looked around. The boy voice one belonged to was dark skinned, like Jordan – which stood to reason, if they’d been doing bloodline retention studies together, which it sounded like from their conversation. Jordan’s bed, the empty one, was in the back corner on the door side of the room (the same position as the bed he’d chosen in Tom’s room, Danielle noted). That left a distinctly pale black-haired boy in the back kitchen-side bed. “Is he conscious?” Danielle asked Jordan, nodding towards the third boy.

  “Dunno,” Jordan said, walking over. He shook the boy’s foot. “You awake, Bam? Hey. Hey, Bam, wake up a minute.”

  The boy groaned faintly. “Well, he’s alive,” Jordan said. “It’s not a good sign if he won’t wake up, though, huh?”

  “Not especially. Does he feel hot to the touch?” Danielle asked. “Have you been doing the thing where you only check the hottest head in the room, like Heather?”

  “Yeah, let me – uh, yeah. I’m dry, will you do the temperature thing?” Jordan asked her.

  Danielle nodded and came over, leaving the cleaned mug almost exactly where she’d found it. She activated her Skill silently, and the number sprang up over the third boy – 103.0o F.

  “Well. That’s more than 102,” Jordan said.

  “It sure is,” Danielle agreed. “Want a quick course on how to use Medic’s Diagnostics? Oh, wait, you’re dry. Well, you can still observe and get an idea of how it works.”

  “I’m not dry,” Gideon said, coming over. “Please, teach me what you can.”

  “Sure,” Danielle said. “Go ahead and activate. This is stuff I basically learned this morning.” She activated the Skill for herself. “The temperature is a data point the lore Skill can use, but for the girl this morning, it also had me pinch the back of her hand a little. Turns out, that’s a test for dehydration,” Danielle said, working the boy’s hand out from under his blanket. “You want a big, gentle pinch, to see how the skin moves – you’re not trying not wake him up with this.” She demonstrated, and as before, her Skill told her that dehydration was probably a factor.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Gideon copied her, and frowned. “So, yes, dehydration,” he said. Then he held his hand near the boy’s mouth.

  “Checking respiration?” Danielle asked.

  “I guess? Yes. Did you already do that?” Gideon asked.

  Danielle rocked a hand. “Sorta – I can hear his breathing with Improved Hearing, which is all I need to know how fast he’s breathing. Which is not fast at all, but then, he’s not exactly moving around a lot, so slow is normal.” She found herself looking at his fingernails – no, the nail beds. Why was she - ? Good color, the Skill whispered. Good sign for oxygenation. “Huh. Apparently fingernails can show if you’re not getting enough oxygen. That’s one to keep in mind in the future. So, see, it’s a lore Skill; the trick is to pay attention and learn what to look for. Then you can go through the usual things faster next time, without having wait and kinda feel it out through the Skill.

  “You two go ahead and see what else you pick up, and also maybe make sure he’s decent, please. I’m going to step out just long enough to radio the Healers for a pick-up,” Danielle concluded. “We’ll knock in a minute, please let us in right away.”

  She nodded to Akari and headed for the door. Behind her, she heard the boy with his head covered asking, “What the rot, Jordan – did you second-Class as a Healer??”

  “Nah, but I got a Medic Skill from the pox,” Jordan said. “What’d you get? Anything cool?”

  Danielle didn’t wait to hear what pox Skill the boy had received; she stepped outside and felt for her radio, only to realize that she hadn’t transferred it over from her other bag. “Stink. I forgot my radio. Do you have yours Akari?” she asked.

  “Yeah, but Ranger Michael’s right there,” Akari said, pointing down the walkway. Danielle turned to see the Ranger Healer leaning against a door – was that 7013?

  “Hey, Ranger Michael!” she called. “I have a patient for you! Are you free to come see him?”

  “What’s his current condition?” Ranger Michael asked, standing away from the door.

  “Unconscious and unresponsive, didn’t wake to gentle shaking, fever 103o and Medic’s Diagnostics says he’s dehydrated,” Danielle said. “Same as the girl Ranger Flo picked up for us this morning, pretty much.”

  “I’m coming,” Ranger Michael said. Akari knocked on the door while they waited for him to come even with 7005.

  Jordan opened it a moment later. “That was fast,” he said. “Good news, Bam fell asleep with his shorts on – uh, his outer shorts, not just – you know what I mean. No jeans, but he’s decent.”

  “Great. Ranger Michael was already here at the building – and here he is,” Danielle said, and they all went back inside.

  Ranger Michael used his main diagnostic Skill on the boy (Bam, presumably) and shook his head. “Classic failure to follow instructions,” he said with a sigh. “No medication in his system, probably hasn’t eaten all day either, seriously dehydrated. Do you remember how to assemble the stretcher, Medic Falconer?”

  “I think so,” Danielle said. “You’ll want to check it for sure, if you let me do it, though.”

  “That’s fine,” Ranger Michael said, pulling the parts out of his boti bag. “Here, get started while I call for the stretcher truck please.”

  He retreated to the door, and held it open while he talked on the radio. Danielle, meanwhile, showed Gideon and Jordan how the pieces went together. “There’s no bottom bar, but it locks into this framework in the stretcher truck, so it won’t sag when nobody’s carrying it. The head bar keeps his head off the ground if we set it down outside, though – that’s why it goes this way around, not the other way,” she explained.

  Ranger Michael came back. “Looking good so far,” he said.

  “I think I’m missing a step, though,” Danielle said, “because it looks like there should be a locking pin or something and I don’t see one.”

  “Oh, right. It’s attached to the canvas,” Ranger Michae said, and showed her how to lock the head bar in place. Then he checked the other attachment points, and finally asked Jordan to help him get Bam on the stretcher and carry him out to the stairs. Gideon, meanwhile, found canteens by the other two boys, who were now watching the proceedings silently (in one case, from a narrow crack under the pillow), and quietly but pointedly filled the bottles, had Danielle sterilize them, and set them back by their two beds. Danielle belatedly noticed the two of them also had a collection of empty soup cans by their beds – had they just been drinking the soup straight from the can without even warming it? Well, at least it was nutrition.

  Jordan carried Bam’s feet on the way to the stairs, and the rest of the group fell in behind him. The Healer that had been guarding the tent met them there, and took over for Ranger Michael. He led Jordan around the tent with the stretcher, while Ranger Michael gestured for Danielle to follow and walked back to the door to 7013. Danielle shook her head silently, but followed him. He activated a privacy Skill when they reached the door – it felt similar to Bubble of Silence in some ways, but definitely not the same – and said, “If you’re going to be right here, we may as well get the door.”

  “That’s not why I came down here, and you know it,” Danielle said. “But fine, since we’re right here and the privacy Skill is already active.” She set her hand against the door.

  Ranger Michael nodded and wasted no more time with discussion. He put his own hand on the door handle, recited the formula, and activated the Skill – knowing it was supposed to be Transmit Skill, Danielle could sort of sense the two parts of it, like a container and its contents. “All right, the room’s all yours,” he said. “Here’s hoping you never need it.”

  “Agreed,” Danielle said. “Now I’m going to go collect my friends, and – “

  “Actually, there was more than just this one reason for me to be hanging out here waiting for you to come out of whichever room you were in,” Ranger Michael said.

  “What’s the other reason?” Danielle asked cautiously.

  Ranger Michael responded by dismissing the privacy Skill. “While you were in that room, we got a call from a Healer in building five,” he said. “She’s got another confirmed case like the one you just found. As you probably noticed, we don’t have any female Healers on duty in the Ranger tent at the moment, so I’m asking you to come with me to building five.”

  “Surely the Sent Healer that called you is female?” Danielle suggested.

  “She is, but she also called it in and left the room in question to go to bed,” Ranger Michael said. “There really aren’t very many truly healthy people in this camp, at the moment. The earliest exposure group is just getting over it, the latest exposure group is just starting to feel really miserable, and with the way the elections came into it, the vast majority of camp was exposed at the same time and are all just barely on the recovering side of the hill, so to speak. I’m honestly surprised you’re doing so well, yourself.”

  “Ah. Well, I might have slept pretty much from lunch to dinner, so that helps,” Danielle said.

  Ranger Michael gave single laugh, but Danielle thought he at least sounded sincerely amused. “Yeah, that’ll help all right,” he said. “Given what Flo and Healer Hart said, you’re probably still a couple days from being back to normal, so I advise you to plan on doing the same tomorrow.”

  Danielle nodded. “Look, do you really need me for this building five thing?” she asked.

  “I need you and your female friend to get the girl on the stretcher, ideally,” Ranger Michael said. “Obviously if there were really no ladies available to help, we’d do what had to be done, but since you two are in fact here to ask, I’m compelled to ask. For modesty and so forth and so on.”

  Danielle narrowed her eyes at him. “And this has nothing to do with whoever might live in room 5013, right?”

  “The patient’s on the second floor, so no,” Ranger Michael said. “Though if you’re willing to check in on 5013 after the girl in 5201 is safely on the ground where the stretcher truck can reach her, I’d be happy to back you up on that, too.”

  Danielle sighed, and looked over to Akari and Gideon, who were both waiting by the stairs. “What do you think, Akari,” Danielle asked, “do you want to go help carry someone down two flights of stairs?”

  “It sounds like somebody better go,” Akari said. “If nothing else, to check if she’s decent, like Jordan did for that guy – did I catch his name right? Was he saying Bam?”

  “I gather it’s short for Bamboo,” Gideon said. “He’s mentioned his roommates a few times the last few days. He’s not really looking forward to moving back in, but he’s worried about actual suicide, and wants to be there to try and help them get past this hopeless phase and figure out how to move forward.”

  “That sounds kind of awful,” Danielle said. “We’ll have to support him however we reasonably can, as a party. For now, though, I guess we’re off to building five.”

  https://www.patreon.com/c/NarrowRuled

  https://discord.gg/u5dtzpShv2